Here There Is No Why - Hardcover

by Philip Graubart (Author)

"...a political, poetic, and unputdownable page-turner of a novel." -Ali Viterbi, playwright, author of In Every Generation

"...offers a cast of complex characters and raises a number of provocative theological questions." -Michael Kinnamon, author of Summer of Love and Evil and The Nominee

"...a compelling, entertaining, and uplifting novel that will leave you inspired. Don't miss it!"-Richard Agler, author of The Tragedy Test and A God That We Can Believe In

Did Chaim Lerner, acclaimed Israeli author and Holocaust survivor, kill himself in 1983, thirty-eight years after surviving Auschwitz? If so, was it traumatic memories finally catching up to him? Or despair over Holocaust denialism? Or ordinary, difficult health issues-an aching hip, a damaged knee? Or simply a deadly episode of depression?

Or was it murder?

In 2005, Judah Loeb, Lerner's former student and now a struggling American journalist and single father, travels to Jerusalem to investigate Lerner's death. He drags along his fifteen-year-old daughter, Hannah, and they team up with Charlie, Judah's former Hebrew University roommate, now a Jerusalem homicide detective. Their investigation takes them through the darker corners of the Israeli psyche, where they uncover secrets that threaten to destroy Lerner's reputation and alter Jewish history. While probing the mysteries of Israel's past, they encounter personal betrayal, heartbreak, and the fragile possibilities of forgiveness and redemption.